Silent Orchestra: How Missing Mental Imagery Mutes Music's Reward

While mental imagery and music reward have each been studied extensively, their interrelationship remains poorly understood. Here, we investigate whether individual differences in imagery vividness are linked to the capacity to experience music as rewarding. Across 4 experiments, we examined the relationship between imagery vividness and sensitivity to music reward. Experiment 1 (N=1342) showed a significant correlation between sensitivity to musical reward and visual imagery vividness. Experiment 2 replicated the association in an independent sample (N=84). Experiment 3 compared individuals with aphantasia (inability to form mental images; N=25) to controls (N=25), finding lower sensitivity to musical reward among aphantasics. Strikingly, 44% of the aphantasics also met criteria for music anhedonia (i.e., inability to experience music reward), whereas only 12% of control participants showed similar deficits in music reward. In experiment 4 (N=19), aphantasics who were music anhedonics (N=7) reported reduced auditory imagery vividness and fewer, shorter involuntary musical imagery experiences (i.e., earworms) compared to aphantasics without music anhedonia (N=12). Moreover, all aphantasics with music anhedonia met the criteria for anauralia (i.e., inability to form auditory imagery). These results show a robust link between visual imagery vividness and sensitivity to musical reward, and suggest that auditory imagery plays a key role in the experience of music reward. As music unfolds over time, impaired auditory imagery may weaken retention of musical sequences in auditory working memory, and disrupt the formation of musical expectations, a process critical for music reward.